


marks on my heart

by ooka



Series: heartbeat [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25565350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/ooka
Summary: Tony makes a joke, at least Steve thinks it's a joke.  It's careless, just falls from his lips like he isn't thinking about it."I should have just stayed dead that last time.  Life would be so much easier."
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: heartbeat [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852696
Comments: 14
Kudos: 133





	marks on my heart

**Author's Note:**

> References info from faulty heart but not needed to read this.

Steve finds out months, years, after the fact.

He's not meant to. Tony makes a joke about having more lives than Jon Snow after one particularly bad mission chasing down Hydra. Thor, who is back, looks to him and declares, "You carry the blessings of Hel on your soul."

"What?" Tony says.

"What?" Steve repeats.

Thor looks at them, and Steve sees the way Tony has his back up, none of his carefree posture. The way Natasha is watching him like he's a live grenade. 

"It's part of an Asgardian’s abilities to see the marks my people have left on mortals. Hel is a jealous type, she leaves lasting marks on those who escape her grasp." He dips his head. "You have escaped death many times."

Steve knows about New York, has heard small mentions of Afghanistan from the others but never from Tony.

When they talk these days, it's rambling stories of some design or project or just anything. Their initial tensions are gone, but Tony isn’t easy with him. Tony isn’t easy with anyone, really. He teases Steve mercilessly. He doesn’t escalate any more, with his reactions to the jabs. Tony's wide mouth grin takes the bite of his words even before they come out. 

But they aren’t friends enough for those sorts of talks. Those are the discussions for Rhodey or Pepper, who lean close, so close and look at him like he’s something already far outside their grasp. 

Steve is starting to realize exactly why they look at Tony that way.

"How many marks?" He asks, because he can't keep his mouth shut.

"Wow that's a little personal!" Tony utters, shocked into action as he wheels around to look at Steve. His eyes are wide and panicked so Steve clenches his jaw shut tight enough his teeth click. 

Thor looks abashed, a rare face for him. "It's considered a mark of a warrior in Asgard. Something we celebrate, holding off Hel for another day. My apologies for bringing it up."

"We all probably have a few," Natasha states, clear, and they all turn to her. 

"You've got three at least," Clint calls from where he's thrown across a chair, like a dame from the films Steve saw when he was young. Natasha tilts her head to the side like it may be right or may be wrong, she won’t confirm or deny.

Then her grin twists, shooting a look at Clint. "A lady never bites and tells," she informs them, and Tony starts laughing, while Clint chokes on a chip. Thor just stares at her, eyes heavy with something he can only see as he studies her. And Bruce, Bruce just watches them all very carefully.

"Is that a Black Widow joke? Oh my god, JARVIS tell me you have that recorded," Tony cries as he looks to the ceiling.

"Your house is wired with cameras, of course it's recorded," Natasha replies dryly. Tony just keeps laughing, a little too high, but no one calls him on it.

It degrades from there, Clint trying to figure out the number and the missions. She doesn't give a firm answer to anything, but Steve catches the look Tony throws at her before he disappears to do _his other job, you know the one that pays for all of this._

It's grateful, painfully so. Her blink is slow in response, deliberate even. Like it's nothing, putting herself in the middle of a deep analysis of her entire mission record. Like she talks about her past with them, ever.

Tony leaves, grin too bright, looking like he does when Steve catches him in the news. A reporter badgering him with questions about the Avengers and the clean ups after fights, SI's stock’s latest tumble, or about the latest lady in his life. The one he uses when he’s about to lie or fake his way through something.

It strikes a deep cord in Steve, seeing that smile directed at him.

  
  
  


He thinks later, _if Natasha has died at least 3 times and Thor hasn't remarked on it, how many times has Tony?_

Steve clamps down the thought, locks it away as he remembers the panic on Tony's face.

It looked all too similar to his face when Hulk had roared him back to life. Frenzied and harried, like he didn’t know where he was, maybe even who he was. But he was alive, and he wasn't sure if he regretted it or not.

Steve knows that feeling, like he sometimes feels a chill in his bones

  
  


“I can't love you like that," Pepper tells him, when he finally tells her _I love you_ on that roof. She reaches out and then hesitates before dropping her hand.

He remembers her holding his hand, fierce and bright in that hospital room, even in a bloodstained dress. The way she had looked at him like he had already gone too far from her.

"Five times," she says, quietly. There are tears in her eyes, and he knows she imagined it. What it looks like, when death really takes. "It took five tries to stick."

Maybe she doesn't have to imagine. She saw it take 4 times.

(He comes back, he always comes back.

Until one day he won't. And they both know it )

  
  
  


They don't talk about it. They never talk about it. Steve burns with wanting to know, but he doesn't ask. Remembers the pale shade of Tony's face and shoves the words back down.

It still lays there, heavy in the air between them. Like Steve is small again, and the weather is too warm, too humid and his heart is beating too hard to try and pump blood.

Steve does what he always did back then, breathes through it.

  
  
  


Tony makes a joke, at least Steve thinks it's a joke. It's careless, just falls from his lips like he isn't thinking about it.

"I should have just stayed dead that last time. Life would be so much easier."

Steve can't swallow and he stares, wide eyes at Tony across the lab. Tony curses the project he is working on and continues on, like what he muttered didn't make Steve feel like he was hitting the ice again in the Valkyrie. 

Steve, eventually, feels his limbs thaw and Tony continues working until he cheers and asks if Steve wants to get celebratory burgers.

Steve always says yes.

  
  
  


Steve never tells him to stop, never tells him to not come on missions. Steve just continues on, figuring Tony into plans with a ruthless efficiency that Tony knows from his own ways of looking at a problem when it’s put in front of him.

Steve treats him like he's normal, like what Thor said means nothing beyond the moment that it happened in, and Tony is so grateful for it. He knows Steve stares at him from time to time, but he never tells Tony to stand down. 

But some days, Tony's heart stutters, and it's harder to get up out of a chair, and he can feel the well worn tiredness of knowing his body has betrayed him one, twice, many times before. 

Some days, this happens when they have a mission in a few hours.

"I can't make it," he admits the first time, quiet in knowing his limitations because Rhodey had made him promise to not keep pushing beyond what he can do some days. 

Steve's eyes are heavy with confusion, and Tony hates talking about it so he just places a hand on his chest, over the arc reactor. 

Something passes through his eyes, quick, before Steve turns back to the holographic map in front of him. The others are on the screen, watching their exchange. "Change of plan team," he announces and starts going through another plan on the comms. 

(Sometimes Tony wonders if Steve has a back up plan for if he can't make it already dreamed up. Or if Steve comes up with them on the fly.

He doesn't ask. He never asks.)

  
  
  


"I don't," Tony starts before stopping like he can't find the words. Steve holds himself very still. Tony can always find the words. More than Steve has ever been able to find in either of his lifetimes.

“I don't know how many times I've died," Tony admits, and for once, it doesn’t sound like something that is drug out of him. It’s something he’s offering up “It's usually small things. You know, the heart stops because of a heart condition and faulty engineering."

He smiles at Steve, who is very barely breathing. Tony looks rueful. "Heart condition, you know?"

Steve remembers barely being able to breathe some days, how it felt like the world was darkening around the edges when he stood up. The way the humidity made it hard to exist sometimes. The way his mother had looked at him, so worried. The way Bucky had looked at him, like he was holding his breath until he saw Steve take in another one.

"I do actually," Steve says. Tony's brows furrow. 

The words tumble out of Steve's mouth. Talking about the old days, when he was younger and smarter and so tiny. How every winter he just felt so cold, like he couldn't get warm as his heart sluggishly pumped.

He tells Tony the stories he barely remembers. His mother falling asleep at the edge of his bed, carefully holding his hand just so she could feel his pulse. The way Bucky would wake him up in the middle of the night, afraid he had stopped breathing for a moment.

Tony listens and listens as the sun goes down, and the moon climbs across the night sky. The light that filters in through the windows paints him pale, paler than usual. He almost looks like a ghost. 

Eventually, Steve runs out of words. So, he looks down at his hands, unable to continue further. “So you get it," Tony states after the silence rings a little too loudly between them. “You have to push away the fear and wrap it in humor because if you don't you'll be swallowed by it.” 

Tony pauses for a long moment before he adds, “The fact that your body can betray you at any moment.”

Steve remembers the fear in his mother's eyes even though he can't remember the rest of her face. The way he had shaken, rattling apart as he struggled to stay alive, knowing that if he died, he would take her heart too.

“Yeah," Steve says, and it sounds ragged, like he's been running for miles and miles. "Yeah."

Tony waits until he looks up, and when Steve does, Tony is careful to meet his eyes and hold his gaze. "Thank you for telling me."

Steve just nods his head, all of his words used up. 

They stay there until Clint wanders in and asks what the hell they are doing just sitting in the dark like idiots.

  
  


Steve sits in the lab a lot after that. They share space and silence. It's comfortable, an ease Steve hasn't felt in a long time.

Some times he looks up and catches Tony looking at him, with an expression across his face that feels familiar. Like something he sees in the mirror sometimes.

Then Tony will throw out a joke and Steve will smile and forget the face, forget the questions. Just be happy to exist in the space with Tony.

They will go out and get burgers or other food and Tony will tell him something, light up while he explains and Steve will sink into the feeling of Tony's undivided attention. 

His heart stutters sometimes, but Steve doesn't dwell on it. Just asks Tony another question to set him off racing again.

  
  
  


Steve thinks about saying something like, _don't go where I can't follow_ but they both spend half of their time fighting villains and trying to save the world. 

Death is inevitable in their line of business.

  
  
  


(He hopes…

Steve just hopes.)

  
  
  


It’s during a fight. Well the very end of a fight, but he doesn’t remember much of it besides the blow to his chest and the burning and the pain. He goes down hard. But Tony's right there, and Steve feels like his heart is beating out of his chest. "Tony," he gurgles, the taste of blood in his mouth.

Tony's face mask is up and his eyes are wide and panicked. He is calling for someone, fumbling for Steve's chest, armor flecked with blood.

"Tony," he repeats, or tries to with all the iron taste filling up his mouth. 

"Stop talking," Tony bites at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since Steve went down. "The medics are going to be here in a second."

Tony's hands are shaking and all Steve can think of is the way his mother's had shook in those long nights, her fingers encircled around his wrist. 

It feels the same.

Steve closes his eyes, against the thought and Tony's loud _open your eyes Steve. You need to open your eyes_ follows him down into the darkness.

  
  
  


Tony watches as Steve wakes up, carefully in Steve's space without touching the other man. If he reaches out a hand, he'll brush Tony's.

Steve's eyes meet the ceiling in confusion before the beeping registers and then he sighs, a tired worn sigh of someone who knows a hospital too well. Tony watches as he closes his eyes, like he expects to be alone in the too white room with the loud beeping.

Tony reaches out, brushes his fingers against Steve's. Leaves them there.

Steve turns his head and when they meet his, Tony's breath catches for a moment. He looks so tired and grateful, blue eyes dark with so many things.

"Go back to sleep," Tony whispers. "I'll be here when you wake up."

Steve falls back asleep after that. Tony doesn't move his hand. 

  
  
  


Steve dreams Tony is there in the hospital by his side. It's cut between faded memories of his mother hovering over him. Bucky's worried eyes in his too young face. 

Steve hopes.

  
  
  


He wakes up again, to Tony's fingers laced in his. His chest aches, but his heart flutters.

  
  
  


Tony wakes in stages until he meets Steve's eyes and starts. He tries to pull his hand away and Steve tightens his grip.

"Don't leave me," Steve says in a hoarse voice. His eyes are brighter than before and there is something in his eyes.

Something Tony sees in the mirror sometimes.

"Never," he promises.

“I have a faulty heart,” Tony says, once. 

Steve leans in close, and Tony tilts his head as Steve places his hands on either side of his cheeks. “So do I.”

Tony huffs a laugh, and reaches forward, splaying his hand across Steve’s chest, “What a pair we make.”

“Enough for one normal heart,” Steve utters before kissing Tony like it’s they don’t have any time left, and maybe they don’t. Maybe they have years, but Tony doesn’t know that. He wouldn’t want to anyway. He would rather spend every day like it’s his last. Kissing Steve, working on his projects, and not letting fear grip his heart.

Steve deepens the kiss, like he knows Tony is thinking too hard. Tony grins into it as his heart skips a beat, and under his fingers, he feels Steve’s do the same.

**Author's Note:**

> You can die more than once. You can die a thousand times, a thousand ways. But love? Oh, darling. You can love a million more.


End file.
